Saint Joseph Catholic Church

L’Osservatore Romano devoted the most prominent front-page article in its July 7 edition to Suhail Abu Shawish, a Palestinian craftsman who repairs ouds in a Gaza refugee camp.

Catholic Connect, a website of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India, reported that the arrest took place on July 5 in Pipardeurwa, before Pastor Saroj Kumar’s Sunday service. The northern Indian state is 80% Hindu and 19% Muslim; only 0.2% of its population is Christian.

Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero, S.D.B., said that he has been “accused of inappropriate behavior towards adult women” and that “this situation has led the Church to open a preliminary investigation.”

“I have committed neither assault nor violence nor sexual harassment,” he added.

Father Marc Helt, the diocesan vicar general, told Agence France-Presse that “we do not know whether [the reported acts] really amount to sexual assault.” Archbishop Alfred Xuereb, the apostolic nuncio to Morocco, said that the “presumption of innocence must be preserved” until the “facts are established by the competent authorities.”